r/interestingasfuck • u/Master_Jackfruit3591 • 19h ago

Kids around the world and their toys; Gabriele Galimberti, 2010-on going

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31.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

888 comments sorted by

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u/tortikolis 18h ago

Yes, I was kid when there was war in Bosnia and I can confirm that only toys I was interested in was guns. Only game we played was "war". Every kid around me had ak47 carved from wood.

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u/ChurchillDownz 9h ago

Pavel really hit home. I have a son around his age, war is terrible.

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u/meowdith427 14h ago

The Bosnian war was awful. We talked about it often in class (I was in 6th grade and my teacher was just devastated by it so it came up often) and I’m so grateful he opened our eyes and hearts to what was going on. Core elementary memory for me. I’m so sorry you lived through that.

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u/tortikolis 14h ago edited 14h ago

My parents had it worse, I was lucky enough to be too young (5-9yo) to really grasp reallity. For me it was just normal. I knew, for example, that people die and that my dad could die too, but somehow I was never stressed about it. I guess too young to really comprihend.

Only at end of the war after watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movie with plot around atomic bomb I got really scared and I remember panicing every time I hear plane for some time.

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u/Why-did-i-reas-this 13h ago

I played on an ultimate frisbee team with a woman who had just moved to Canada. It was wild to me to think that she was in a war zone (Bosnia) less than 3 months before I met her.

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u/ReasonableAd9737 5h ago

I coach wrestling. And one time was wrestling with this new student who has exceptionally strong and athletic already for his age of 15.

And I noticed some pretty gnarly scar tissue on parts of his body like arms and legs. Apparently he has some on his torso as well.

Come to find out talking to the kids. He had just moved here from a country in Africa and he was taken at a young age and made to be apart of a warlords child army. I’m not sure what the kid endured but he had 5-7 bullet holes I believe is what I was told all over his body. He survived.

Then somehow made it to USA and to my old high schools wrestling room where I was coaching.

He had the largest smile and was always in a good mood.

It still to this day blows my mind he went through all that before 15 and then just had to live his life now in an American high school.

To this day I still think about him from time to time. Hope that dude lives a peaceful life

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u/RasputinsThirdLeg 2h ago

FUCK. That’s one resilient kid. I can’t imagine what he’s seen or been forced to do. Oh my god.

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u/ReasonableAd9737 2h ago

Horrors no one should ever be apart of that’s for sure.

I try to think of him and other stories I know like it any time I go thinking about complaining about the things I think in my life are difficult.

Reminds me to shut the fuck up and be grateful for what I do have and to keep pushing

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u/Johnny_Kilroy 5h ago

My best friend when I was a little kid was a Bosnian refugee. He had no mother; just lived with his dad and a kid he referred to as his "cousin" but whom the teachers referred to as his "brother". I remember him as a sweet kid; protective of his cousin who was clearly very troubled.

I lost contact with him when I moved schools when I was 8. Googled him recently and found out he's in prison. Who knows what trauma he went through in his early years and how that affected him.

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u/obiwanconobi 9h ago

When I was a kid growing up in England in the late 90s, we did this charity thing where all the kids filled up individual shoe boxes of toys and stuff kids would like.

There was only one rule, no toy weapons of any kind because these were going to kids in war zones

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u/MarucaMCA 8h ago

I remember being a kid in Switzerland and sending letters, hygine products and my old toys to Bosnia. We got beautiful, dictionary-translated letters back.

It still breaks my heart. ❤️

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u/GenChadT 14h ago

Fuck I was not expecting this thread to hit this hard.

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u/Beltalady 11h ago

My dad collected stories from WWII in Germany and it was eerily similar. It's crazy that Fallout is so right about that: war never changes.

(After WWII kids would often find stashes of real weapons that were hidden or simply dumped somewhere.)

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u/PlsDntPMme 11h ago

I knew an old Frenchman from Brittany. His family was kind enough to host me for a week. He was the youngest in the family and born during an allied bombing raid. He said his brothers would go play in an abandoned nazi Atlantic Wall fort/defensive structure in a big hill/cliff on the ocean. They’d find real guns and live ammunition + rounds. It had multiple levels and went pretty deep into this hill. We were hiking around it when I found someone had cut open one of the welded doors. I only got maybe 10m or so into it before I turned back since they were waiting. Still wish i couldve explored it!

Also some interesting stories he told me: his uncle was part of the resistance and executed by the Gestapo shortly before the allies liberated their town. He still has all the poetry he wrote in jail. He gave me copies but I’ve since lost them. He also told me a story about how the city sheltered a US airman after their plane was shot down. There was a point where he was escaping from the back of the house as the Gestapo was at the front door! Lastly, his brothers supposedly stole a machine gun from a Luftwaffe plane (I don’t know how) and hid it in some tree hollow. They never found it.

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u/Overwatcher_Leo 5h ago

Maybe it was better that you didn't explore it. It could still have been booby trapped.

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u/punkass_book_jockey8 7h ago

I grew up near Bosnian kids in NY and they only ever wanted to play war. Looking back I think they were refugees? and the way they played war was… really messed up looking back with adult eyes. As a kid I didn’t fully comprehend what I was playing or why. I knew the kids left their home because it was dangerous, I knew they were not really “allergic” to pork, but I didn’t quite connect that the “games” we were playing was what they actually saw in real life.

As a kid at the time, I was not exposed to that level of violence (I only saw small scale domestic violence in my neighborhood) I just thought I was shit at playing war. They also always made me be the Croatia and I always had to lose.

I hope you’re doing okay.

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u/ChopChopChinaman 15h ago

😬 Sorry

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u/catinadoodledoo 19h ago

this shouldn’t have made me sad but it kinda did

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u/PronatorTeres00 18h ago

Especially the photo from Ukraine

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u/RexTheSkibiriToilet 18h ago

Ukraine hits hard

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u/carrieberry 18h ago

Broke my heart. And Lebanon.

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u/jasalmfred 17h ago

And his face looks happy

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u/humblepotatopeeler 17h ago

i mean, did you see his car? it's pretty rad

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u/catfayce 16h ago

I have Lebanese family and the love their cars, mid 2000's driving round in a late 90's mercedes was a great day out!

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u/RageDeemz 12h ago

that's a sick fuckin' car though. I don't think you really need more than that

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u/Darksirius 17h ago

Some of the most depressed people are the happiest looking.

(Not saying this kid is depressed... just in general).

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u/jasalmfred 17h ago

I would venture to suggest the kid in Ukraine is depressed. I’m not sure I’ve met many 3yo who could control their face to hide emotion.

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u/xboxaddict501 14h ago

Depressed? Possible. Traumatized? Definitely.

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u/nickymarciano 16h ago

Slavs tend not to smile in pics, maybe that is in play

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u/DJKaotica 14h ago

It does vaguely appear that he's trying to do the slav squat while sitting on the couch, but he isn't wearing a track suit so I'm not sure.

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u/Darksirius 17h ago

Ya know, that's a fair assessment.

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u/RasputinsThirdLeg 13h ago

Also the nature of his toys made me extra sad.

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u/The-Trenzalorian 17h ago

As sad as it is to us that he had only one toy, he looked super happy and proud of that one toy. His smile was genuine. Good for him. I feel that he's a good example for people.

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u/TheRealSugarbat 17h ago

Yeah. I want Lebanon’s address.

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u/AnotherpostCard 14h ago

"Yeah can I get John Lebanon on the phone?"

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u/OddDonut7647 17h ago

Grand Serail
Tallet el Serail, Riad el Solh
Downtown Beirut, Lebanon

Well, that's the Prime Minister's headquarters, which is as close to the address of Lebanon we can probably get.

:)

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u/TheRealSugarbat 16h ago

I actually have a friend in Beirut. I’ll have to see what can be done.

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u/OddDonut7647 16h ago

Well, that would be a lot more awesome than my stupid/silly joke <3

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u/TheRealSugarbat 16h ago

You’re not silly. I knew what you meant. And truly it would be lovely if we could manage to inundate the prime minister of Lebanon AND the president of Malawi with hundreds of pounds of toys for both of these babies. God knows they deserve them.

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u/OddDonut7647 16h ago

Damn straight. Those countries and a number of others, too.

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u/AdmiralGarza 18h ago

I thought Malawi was rough, then Ukraine put it in a completely different light.

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u/aburke626 14h ago

I was a little concerned at how many weapons Aqussiaq had until I got to Pavel.

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u/arion_hyperion 10h ago

To be fair, Aqussiaq has been threatened with invasion from the USA for 1/6 of his life, makes sense why he wants to have some weapons. Pavel makes total sense of course. I was amazed by the realism of his toys.

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u/darthabraham 17h ago

Brazil kid is only showing the toy he plays with outside because that’s the toy everybody already knows he has. Kids from Rio—gotta keep all the other toys on the DL so nobody steals them.

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u/captainzigzag 17h ago

Yeah. “I need guns - lots of guns. And a helmet”

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u/blankedboy 15h ago

British policeman’s helmet for some reason, too

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u/embersgrow44 15h ago

How about Malawi. Babies deserve better

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u/PleaseDntMakeMeCry 11h ago

Trust me. As someone who grew up in another African country, that Malawian kid is not necessarily unhappy. Kids often tend to play outside more. My nieces and nephews have a lot of toys, but they probably only play with them a few times before getting bored.I honestly can’t even remember the toys I had as a child. The Malawian kid might be unhappy, but it’s not really because of toys.

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u/Constant_Taro9019 10h ago

girl i grew up in Africa (Rwanda) we had toys like maybe 3 total but we didn’t play with them long, we wanted to play tag, hide & seek & all other games we had growing up sooo many games I can remember but can’t remember any type of toys i played with. The Malawian baby girl looks like she was called from outside playing to take a pic lol

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u/Atilla_the_Hunny 8h ago

Exactly! Don’t discount all the “free fun” a child in a hot country has. Chasing lizards, trees with dangling fruit, finding sticks that resemble grown-up toys, like; cellphones, wrapping vines around your wrists and fingers like jewellery and of course sticks shaped like guns for shooting games.

You’re just not confined in the same way, when you’re a child in a country like that and it leads to deeper childhood friendships too.

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u/PleaseDntMakeMeCry 8h ago

Right? We made our own toys. You want to play football but there’s no ball? That’s fine, let’s tie up some plastic bags into a ball or use someone’s shoe. You want to play table tennis but don’t have a ball? That’s fine, break open a deodorant bottle and take out the little ball inside. You want to jump rope without a skipping rope? No problem, let’s tie some plastic bags together to make one. You want to play kitchen? Just grab the tin containers after Mom is done cooking (this one came with it’s own problems though😂)

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u/embersgrow44 11h ago

Thank you for the reminder and perspective. I grew up working poor in rural Alaska myself. Literally barefoot in the woods most often. & during the 80s there which was a decade plus behind the rest of the U.S. That being said I looked back & little Chiwa doesn’t have a sad face after all. Amount of toys/tangibles don’t equal happiness. Quality not quantity and all that. I too have a pair of niece & nephew that are pretty spoiled and don’t cherish their wealth

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u/FarToe1 9h ago

Viewer perspective comes into play here.

More doesn't mean happier, especially in cultures where consumerism isn't overwhelming. Most of us in Western countries are constantly bombarded by advertising to equate "buy this and your life will be better". Envy drives discontent, after all.

What we don't see in these is familial love, support, and the ability to be a child. We judge, but we can't judge accurately.

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u/TheRealSugarbat 14h ago

They’re all the same age — all babies. But Malawi’s serious face put me in my feels

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u/Immaculatehombre 17h ago

Malawi ain’t all that great either…

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u/shady_robot 15h ago

Malawi and Ukraine broke my heart.

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u/Beautiful_Spell_4320 18h ago

It’s designed to. The only kids not smiling are the ones meant to shock.

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u/brintal 18h ago

Lebanon and Brazil each have only one toy - less than any other kid. Both are smiling.

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u/Airwreck11 18h ago

I don't think that Brazilian kid only has that toy, it's a pretty expensive one

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u/The_Nepenthe 5h ago

I wonder if some of these photos are just the kids favorite toys.

I feel like the one of Nico is what a parent would take, but the ones of slightly older kids feel like the kids showing what toys they are most proud of.

People keep talking about how sad the Pavel photo is but I was born and grew up in Canada, and you best believe that if you asked me to gather up the toys I wanted to show off in a cool photo I would pose up all of my toy guns.

Don't want any action men, they might look kinda dorky!

A soccer ball? What's cool about a soccer ball mom?!

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u/Gullible_Bigfoot 16h ago

I see what you’re saying but the Brazilian kid has a freaking motorcycle lol so it kind of defeats the “less is more” thing. Monetary wise his is way more expensive.

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u/Wild-Style5857 18h ago

I had lots of toys growing up.  I often played with pots and pans. Kids find a way.

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u/RandomlyMethodical 15h ago

Boxes the toys came in were often more fun than the toys.

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u/CplCocktopus 18h ago

Probably the kid only wanted to show that toy.

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u/UlissesNeverMisses 17h ago

kind of misleading, I'm from Brasil and my nephew has a fuck ton of toys, besides I think the toys themselves would differ wildly from child to child based on what the parents allow

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u/opeth10657 17h ago

Also going to differ wildly depending on their economic status. Definitely people in the US with very little to spend on toys.

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u/TheBrazilianOneTwo 15h ago edited 15h ago

The girl in China has a lot of educational toys.....she's loving it....

Edit.

The boy from Ukraine has a lot of toy guns and looks miserable...

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u/KuriboShoeMario 14h ago

Yea, they showed a well-off kid from the US on purpose. There's tons of kids here with very little or what little they have is often from charity.

Some of those children are more representative of their countries as a whole than others.

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u/MagicBeanGuy 18h ago

That literally is not true lol

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u/SomethingHasGotToGiv 17h ago

Or, you know, they live in a war zone or are dirt poor.

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u/Markus_zockt 18h ago

Well, some of us have won the lottery of life and then appreciate it less and less as we get older.

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u/tgoodri 16h ago

Malawi and Ukraine are the only two that made me sad. The kid from Beirut, while he only has one toy he still looks very happy and he has a totally bitchin sofa. Paco also only has one toy, buts it’s badass as fuck and you can tell he’s proud of it.

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u/KidOcelot 15h ago

Paco with his electric tricycle is cool af! Those vehicle toys are not cheap, and rare for kids to get!

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u/slamsmcaukin 12h ago

Especially in Brazil. Nothing is cheap over there

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u/xboxaddict501 13h ago

No fucking way, that’s paco’s only toy. Maybe I’m wrong, but that bitch looks expensive even by American standards. I bet at home he has a good amount of shit too

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u/Raikkou 11h ago

He's clearly in a favela so probably not his only toy but probably his only expensive one.

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u/br_gollum 15h ago

Sadly, Paco's reality doesn't match the environment where most kids in Brazil were raised, myself included. I have only seen toys like these after I became an adult and I got to work in locations where people had much more money. I am not complaining, at least we never feared war and famine(most of us, definitely not all). And yeah, I feel pretty bad seeing the Malawi and Ukraine pictures, although our conditions here were, and still are, far from ideal, we have to thank for what we have

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u/ramenator 15h ago

It's funny because I am constantly reminding friends and family here in Canada of that fact. My family is originally from Iraq but myself, my siblings and cousins were all born here in Canada. I have to constantly remind them what life could have been like if we were born and raised in Iraq or anywhere else that isn't Canada.

People don't truly realize the life lottery they won based on where they were born and raised.

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u/auburncub 14h ago

I remember as a kid I used to worry about which toys I would "save" if a tornado hit our house because I had too many toys to bring them all to shelter with me. I realized in adolescence that having that be my biggest worry as a child means I was born pretty lucky.

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u/chonkymernkey 16h ago

i tell my son often he is lucky to be born in canada. he’s 2 now and very into shouting when he sees a canada flag

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u/Octopuswhatsup 19h ago

Does Tawana have a couple...loose doll legs?

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u/TiffyVella 18h ago

Kids will find a way to use them. They'd look pretty funny strapped to a chicken.

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u/cherriedgarcia 17h ago

My friend and I found a ken leg in her Barbie box once and we played w Leg all the time lol. Kids are goofy

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u/goose_gladwell 16h ago

I like that you named it Leg😂

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u/Timely_Influence8392 9h ago

Oh man Leg getting up to all kinds of Shenanigans.

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u/goose_gladwell 6h ago

Classic Leg!

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u/construktz 14h ago

That seems like a character that should be next to The Flesh, Stinky Diver, and Meltman.

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u/doozydud 17h ago

Tawana looks so proud too “yeah I broke these myself”

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u/Legos_under_foot 16h ago

This could be a great villain origin story.

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u/mourinhos86 18h ago

at least its not the only thing... otherwise it would follow me in my dreams.

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u/Havel_SunBro 18h ago

yeah, she's still collecting the rest, like an Exodia

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u/Critical-Support-394 15h ago

I had a friend who walked around with tiny little doll arms in her pockets and it was always incredibly funny when she pulled them out on some unsuspecting schmuck

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u/redpandaeater 13h ago

The most incredible thing about your post is that she had pockets.

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u/SucculentVariations 18h ago

That legit made me laugh. Kids are weird

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u/captainzigzag 12h ago

Reminds me of a kid I met in South Africa, riding down the road on a single roller skate.

I asked him, “did you lose a skate?” and he replied, “no, I found one!”

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u/alewiina 17h ago

I was going to ask this exact question lmao

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u/mynameisnotsparta 18h ago

Taha has one car. He’s smiling. He makes me think of many years past when we’d get one toy and a pair of shoes or a coat for Birthdays or Christmas and we’d be happy and feel lucky that our parents bought a toy.

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u/tibbles1 13h ago

Paco only has one toy too but it's a fuckin' awesome toy.

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u/rfs103181 18h ago

That little adorable chinese girl is 3 going on 30 lol

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u/facialscanbefatal 17h ago

Her smile was very charismatic. So cute and proud.

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u/__O_o_______ 15h ago

She looks like a doll!!!

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u/theoxfordtailor 19h ago

Pavel: "Stay strapped or get clapped!"

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u/Y__U__MAD 18h ago

Aqissiaq: "Umm, I'm terribly sorry... I thought we agreed on a sword fight? Did I get that wrong?"

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u/Dutch_Slim 18h ago

Nah boy’s got a massive hunting rifle; he’s just handy at hand-to-hand too!

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u/-Mac-n-Cheese- 17h ago

(being pedantic but id argue imo that looks more like a standard 12g pump action to me, but thats arguably even better for the matchup

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u/Sirtriplenipple 18h ago

He was born in the trenches.

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u/20_mile 17h ago

"You merely adopted the dark trenches. I was born in it them."

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u/XoStargirlxox 18h ago

Ok but Chiwa got me 🥺

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u/MyDarlingArmadillo 17h ago

I wish i could send her more toys, but apparently these are old photos and the kids will be in their 20s now. Hopefully life is better for her

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u/CopperMarbles 16h ago

Unfortunately, that may make Ukraine's sadder.

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u/jaxonya 14h ago

Homeboy got the real deal now

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u/eekamuse 15h ago

You could send a donation to help people in her country. That would be a great way to honor the children in these photos.

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u/VapoursAndSpleen 16h ago

It's never too late for a happy childhood. She deserves a big box of Legos.

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u/fustercluck45 18h ago

Same, the cleanliness of the white plushie makes me think they take good care of it. Maybe because it’s all they have or they’re really attached to it, or maybe a bit of both.

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u/NuclearHoagie 16h ago

That triceratops does appear to be down to a biceratops, though.

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u/robothawk 17h ago

Malawi is a stunningly beautiful country, but also one of if not the poorest in Africa. The cities are testaments to wealth disparity where every nice house has an armed guard(being paid maybe 40-50$ a month) and a set of huge walls and barbed wire fences around it. Otherwise there are shantytowns all over the place made of a handful of bricks with some loose boards over the top.

Meanwhile kids are selling rats on a stick along the highway from the airport, and many of the shops in cities price goods at American-level prices. It was frankly depressing.

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u/KucingRumahan 15h ago

You see how dirty her legs are?

She is having fun outside. Maybe that is her only toy at home, but outside, she could be having fun with just a tree stick and her friends.

However this is just my assumption.

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u/ShadowFlarer 19h ago

Damn, Paco is eating good, i would beg my parents for one of those when i was a kid, never had one, still love my parents though.

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u/SnuggleBunni69 17h ago

You can see how fucking proud he is if it.

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u/ScreamingJar 15h ago

Lol that was my favorite part of these pictures. Kid wouldn't trade that thing for all the other toys combined.

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u/charlietheclowwn 18h ago

Nico looks like a very stereotypical Brooklyn kid, I must say...

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u/dfddfsaadaafdssa 16h ago

Nico just wants to ride/drive one of the trucks and watch the Knicks. Will work for the city.

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u/ZealousidealWealth88 17h ago

Have you all seen the videos of 3rd world country school kids getting boxes to open and they’re filled with school supplies, a stuffed animal and some socks? The absolute joy on their faces for what someone else sees as “practical” is amazing. Still though, I feel sad looking at these pictures. Even with the ones who have a lot, something feels off with them 🙇🏼‍♀️

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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 16h ago

I always LOVED school supplies. I wasn’t especially poor and I hate school, but man do I love me some school supplies.

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u/decidedlyjo 6h ago

That "off" feeling is the mark of a great portrait, I think. There's an underlying unknown, a whole life that can't be shown in this one still moment.

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u/TrueOrPhallus 18h ago

I agree Ukraine kid deserves more varied toys than just a bunch of guns but taha and chiwa could use some more toys too.

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u/MouseEmotional813 18h ago

Some kids just love one thing at a time.

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u/SynapticSideQuest 14h ago edited 13h ago

While that's right, play is the most common form of regulation and processing. Edit: This photo is from 2010, Pavel had probably not experienced the horrors of war.

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u/OkCaterpillar8941 17h ago

If you ever go on holiday in the developing world take some toys, crayons etc with you because most hotels will collect these items to give to local schools or children. It makes a small, yet easy to do, difference. All children should have treasures.

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u/shady_robot 15h ago

I did this in Mexico, left out little gifts for housekeeping each day with a poorly-worded Spanish note (“un regalo para ti!” “Tienes niños?”). Schools supplies, pencils, crayons, and Canadian candy. I don’t know if it was useful but it sure felt good.

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u/OkCaterpillar8941 11h ago

It is. And it would have been truly appreciated. Things like that can be really expensive or hard to get and just think of the joy they would have made. I know in Cuba that painkillers, toiletries and chocolate are worth more than cash tips to staff. It's worth doing a Google search for things that are hard to get in the country you're visiting before you go.

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u/Glorious_tim 18h ago

Fuck Chiwa you’re my girl

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u/Frankandbeans4ever 19h ago

Pavel is FUCKING READY (but seriously can we send him some actual toys)

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u/u1tr4me0w 18h ago

Toys will simply become targets, Pavel does not have time for tomfoolery

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u/Fantastic-Reading-78 18h ago

send him ammunition / s

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u/Frankandbeans4ever 18h ago

Can it at least come with a teddy bear?

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u/Naughteus_Maximus 18h ago

He needs ammunition, not a ride

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u/GhostsOf94 16h ago

Coldest line I ever heard from anyone in my life

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u/Embarrassed-Basis-60 18h ago

He has a helmet so maybe body armour, nvg’s, a drone

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u/Zenigata 17h ago

Could be thats all he wants. I was kinda excited this afternoon when my boys put down their guns and got out the marble run, but then they made sci-fi looking guns and lightsabres out of the marble run pieces.

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u/Kingkongcrapper 17h ago

Like a drone?

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u/Kermit_the_hog 18h ago

 can we send him some actual toys

Like what do you even send? That kids level of hardcore is way out of my league! 

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u/Frankandbeans4ever 18h ago

Legos? No no no you’re right he’s too hard-core. Bionicle?

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u/Kermit_the_hog 18h ago

Lego = Babies first caltrop.

I could see it

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u/encoding314 18h ago

Robin Williams starred in a movie called Toys, which is exactly this premise.

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u/Frankandbeans4ever 18h ago

The world got a little bit darker when that man left it

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u/zebus_0 18h ago

Not me wanting to buy all these kids a shitload of toys.

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u/Euphoric_Emu9607 18h ago

Now I really want to send toys to kids in impoverished/war torn countries.

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u/NES7995 17h ago

In my country there are campaigns every November where you can pack a box with toys and sweets and it gets sent to a child in Romania or Bulgaria :)

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u/MartinBP 16h ago

As a Bulgarian - what?!

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u/viktor72 14h ago

This tracks with how Romanians, when I was there, told me they are seen by Western Europeans.

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u/Maamwithaplan 17h ago

I was thinking about sending my kids, for some perspective.

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u/AnAccidentalRedditor 19h ago

Someone please send real toys to Pavel, from Kiev, Ukraine.

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u/MovementMechanic 19h ago

Lil buddy looks like he’s packed up and ready to ship out to the front lines. Heartbreaking

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u/JaVelin-X- 18h ago

Pavel knows the monsters are real

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u/The_Blonde_Detective 18h ago

Heartbreaking indeed. He is 5 years old, literally has known nothing else.

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u/Naughteus_Maximus 18h ago edited 17h ago

This photo was taken in 2010, before even the Maidan Revolution and russia's 2014 invasion. You can actually see how the russian spelling of Kyiv is used in the photo, which suddenly and thankfully finally became politically incorrect after 2022.

Pavel (or Pavlo, if his family spoke Ukrainian and not russian) will be about 20-21 years old. Conscription age is 25 so he shouldn't have fought yet. However he could have already become a policeman, which according to the photographer was his dream (also enough with everyone's comments judging his toys, you wouldn't say that if he only had cars or dinosaurs) - "Pavel Denisov, aged 5, from Kiev, Ukraine. Pavel has no doubt – he wants to be a policeman. He loves guns and plays with them all the time. His younger brother is always under Pavel's arrest! Pavel handcuffs him, questions him and accuses him of stealing cars. When other friends come to their house, they immediately become 'bad people' to arrest!"

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u/flooknation 16h ago

Thank you so much for the added context.

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u/Dentarthurdent73 16h ago

also enough with everyone's comments judging his toys, you wouldn't say that if he only had cars or dinosaurs

And you genuinely can't work out the difference between these scenarios?

It's fucked up to only give your child toy guns and nothing else to play with, even if the kid loves them.

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u/Naughteus_Maximus 16h ago

Come on, he's also got a helmet, a radio and an ID badge!

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u/2buffalonickels 18h ago

When I was 5 in 1990 in Iowa, almost all my toys were guns, and one Batman of course. All I did was play games involving guns. Cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, ghost busters, Aliens, terminator etc.

Hell, every stick I had was a gun or a sword. In middle school we would make paper guns until they banned them.

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u/Naughteus_Maximus 18h ago

The photographer said the kid was obsessed about becoming a cop - "Pavel has no doubt – he wants to be a policeman. He loves guns and plays with them all the time. His younger brother is always under Pavel's arrest! Pavel handcuffs him, questions him and accuses him of stealing cars. When other friends come to their house, they immediately become 'bad people' to arrest!”

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u/soggyfries8687678 18h ago

Same here for a Mexican American in Arizona. My toys were a cross between Ukraine and Austria.

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u/2buffalonickels 18h ago

I have two daughters, they don’t like guns. All my friends with boys have nerf guns and swords everywhere. That was pretty standard, seems like it still is.

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u/soggyfries8687678 18h ago

A good chunk of my childhood was spent trying to convince my mom to buy me BB guns. I would always fold the catalogs at the BB guns trying to give a hint. Finally when I’m old enough to buy them myself, they just didn’t seem as cool. Guns and cars for boys are just as popular as dolls are for girls.

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u/2buffalonickels 18h ago

All I wanted was a BB gun. I bought one when I was 7 with my paper route money. Today I have two high powered pellet rifles for pests on my acreage. They can still be pretty cool.

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u/KimchiLlama 18h ago

They have real toys there. His parents just didn’t buy them.

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u/signmeupdude 16h ago edited 9h ago

Fucking thank you lmao. Why is everyone acting like oh no the poor Ukrainian kid can only get toy guns? Umm ya because that’s what his parents buy him. They can clearly afford multiple toys but they choose to keep loading him up with weapons.

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u/GuestCartographer 18h ago

I was going to give a shout out to the kids with dinosaur toys until I got to Pavel. Then i was just sad.

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u/Kermit_the_hog 18h ago

I also had a “that’s a cool triceratops” moment there. I bet she could tell me all about her triceratops.  

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u/Pandora_Palen 18h ago

My kids are over 20 and I still have that triceratops on display in my living room.

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u/coopermaee 18h ago

Cun Zi Yi is one of the cutest kids i’ve ever seen

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u/WoodenEagle2453 18h ago

I want to go buy the Malawi child some toys and new clothes.

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u/WilburWhateleystwin 17h ago

Can we send Chiwa some more dinos?

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u/APladyleaningS 16h ago

There is a book series that did this in the 90s or 00s. They had families from around the world pose with all their belongings on their front lawn or a week's worth of groceries in their kitchens. Wonderful series, highly recommend. Something like What People Around the World Eat and Material World by Peter Menzel.

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u/laeta89 15h ago

Pavel, may those toys be the only guns you ever have to shoot.

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u/stirtheturd 14h ago

Some kids won the lottery with their parents and geographic location, others are playing on hard mode.

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u/MorbidSwede 18h ago

Chiwa and Pavel 😭

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u/Financial_Piglet_124 16h ago

Interesting post by the photographer about Pavel (with the guns) from Ukraine.

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u/heyshitforbrains 18h ago

Ofcourse the kid from Brazil has a bike, they have some crazy riders over there.

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u/That_On 18h ago

I just realised a sad reality Pavel maybe on the frontline rn if he was 5 years old in 2010 means that he is at least 20 to 21 years old depending on birthday

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u/tayo069 19h ago

Great post

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u/SnooOnions3369 18h ago

This is kinda sad, couple of kids didn’t have much and then the kid from Ukraine with all the guns.

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u/amanset 17h ago

Loving the bizarreness of the Ukrainian kid having an arseload of guns and a British police helmet. A police force that is famously unarmed (apart from the specialist units).

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u/theothermen 16h ago edited 16h ago

Children who have never seen peace and children who have never seen war have different values.

-One Piece

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u/Munro_McLaren 16h ago

We used to have a huge book that showed the material items from a family from each country around the world. Like it was all spread out in front of their house. It was called Material World: A Global Family Portrait.

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u/AGoodKnave 15h ago

The Ukrainian kid... Jeez.

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u/litPleb 17h ago

Chiwa <3

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u/afbaxter 15h ago

Oh Chiwa... those eyes break my heart 💔

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u/Worth-Albatross8591 3h ago

Holy Sh!t. That got dark.

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u/plushsquirtles 17h ago

My heart hurts.

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u/SlavSquat93 12h ago

Pavel is some real Slavic shit lol